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The
e-commerce giant's Amazon Echo and Echo Dot devices will claim a
70.6 percent share of the U.S. market this year, the study
found. The speakers feature Alexa, Amazon's voice-controlled
aide, which users can tell to play music, order an Uber or turn
on the house lights.
That puts it far ahead of Alphabet Inc's Google Home, a similar
gadget that has a 23.8 percent share, and less successful
offerings from other tech companies.
The number of active U.S. users will more than double for the
devices this year, to 35.6 million, eMarketer said.
The report underscores Amazon's progress in making Alexa and its
speech-recognition technology an integral part of customers'
lives. More users means more data that can improve Alexa's
understanding and could make it a top platform for voice, like
Windows is for desktop.
Amazon does not disclose Echo sales figures but has said it had
trouble keeping the product in stock. Device sales and extra
revenue from shoppers placing orders via Alexa could generate
$10 billion for Amazon by 2020, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark
Mahaney said in a recent note. And that does not include
potential revenue from others using Alexa as a platform.
Google's share is expected to grow, though. Tests by analysts
have shown the technology underpinning the Google Home to match
or be superior to competitors. A survey by Mahaney found the
device's brand awareness in the United States already equaled 80
percent of Alexa's, despite being on the market for fewer
months.
The statistics from eMarketer focused on speakers and left out
other virtual assistants: notably, Apple Inc's Siri and
Microsoft Corp's Cortana. More than 60 million in the United
States will use virtual assistants at least once monthly in
2017, the report said. That's over a quarter of U.S. smartphone
users.
(Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; Editing by Tom
Brown and Andrew Hay)
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